Most people have heard of green screening, and virtually everyone has seen its effects on TV, in movies, and on social media. Most people, however, don’t really understand how it works.

While the technology is generally called green screening by most people, it is actually called chroma keying and it can be done with almost any colored screen.

In fact, other colors are often used. Blue, for example, actually has quite a few benefits because it does not reflect onto people as well as green does. Movie makers often switch back and forth between blue and green screens based on the specific needs of a shot.

When you need a one-size-fits-all chroma keying option, however, the green screen is definitely the most popular.

This is in large part because people don’t have green skin. When choosing a background color for this technology, you want to minimize the chances that the computer will accidentally include someone’s skin in what it is replacing. In addition, bright green is not quite as popular of a color for clothes.

So, that is why you will typically see social media influencers, weather forecasters, and others using the standard green screen.

Another reason that green was chosen is because green has a higher perceived brightness for humans. This just means that when the same amount of light is shined on two different colors, the green looks brighter to us.

Our eyes have three photoreceptive cells (cones) that each pick up different wavelengths of color (red, green, or blue) and humans are more sensitive to the green wavelengths.

Because that is how our eyes work, we have also applied the same standard to digital video cameras. These cameras have more sensors for green built in so that they match our eyes. Therefore, the cameras are able to easily pick up the greens, which makes it easier for the systems in place to swap out the green and replace it with whatever background images are needed.

This type of technology has been used for many decades now, and even though CGI has advanced dramatically in recent years, the simple green screen is still among the most common, and impressive, special effect option out there.

Green screens are a pretty amazing piece of technology.

At this point, they’re pretty much indispensable.

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